Furthermore, since pluripotency genes are known to regulate the stemness of MSCs and ESCs by maintaining self-renewal and inhibiting differentiation20,21, we investigated the endogenous expression of Oct4 and Sox2 in AF-N-MSCs to determine whether the enrichment of Nanog protein has a profound effect on the expression of other pluripotency factors. Here, SOX2 is linked to atrial fibrillation.